Thirty Minute Meals - Myth or Reality?

I've mentioned this here before, but I don't like cookbooks without photos. I'm a college-educated man with an active imagination. I should be able to visualize the finished dish based on the cookbook's description and my knowledge of the ingredients, but I can't. For some reason, when presented with a words-only recipe, I turn into Koko the gorilla, unable to effectively communicate beyond some simple sign-language and a series of low grunts. To me, a recipe without pictures is like a blind date. A description is nice, but going without a photo is a serious risk. Either way, you might end up with something unattractive at the dinner table.

My wife is a pretty big fan of Rachel Ray. She Tivo's her television show and owns two of her cookbooks. These cookbooks are of no use to me (see above), but Mrs. Undaground has now attempted a few of the recipes and, in my slightly-overweight opinion, they have been excellent.

Rachel Ray does a fantastic job of branding herself. Her hook is the "30-minute meal". If you've ever seen her show on Food Network, you know that the woman can get a lot done in 30 minutes. It's a great premise, but there's a darkside. The whole "30-minute meal" thing begins as a reasonable goal for anyone attempting one of her recipes, but when the amateur cook fails to finish in 30 minutes, it's kind of a letdown for the cook. At the very least, it's a humorous footnote as we sit down to enjoy our "48-minute meal", or sometimes, our "57-minute meal". The thirty-minute meal has always just been a piece of folklore in our house like "8-minute abs" or "3-day diet" or "earn up to $250,000 a year reading your own email".

For me, it's not important. The food is quite tasty, and I never really expected anything from a photo-free cookbook anyway. As far as I'm concerned, every meal that comes from that book is a bonus. For my wife, a "30-minute meal" cooked in an hour is a downer. I won't try to explain or understand this since I'm the guy who ruined Thanksgiving because my football team lost.

Let me get sappy for a moment to give you some background information. Whenever my wife is cooking us dinner, I take the following steps, in order:

1. Pause live TV
2. Walk into the kitchen and kiss her neck
3. Eat dinner and compliment her on the meal
4. Do the dishes (or at least take the lead on the dish-doing)

I'm like Old Faithful on this one. I always come through with the kitchen-kiss on the neck. I've done this every time she's cooked dinner since the first time, back when we were dating (we now refer to that evening as the "Vinegar Veal Incident", but that's a blog post for another day).

The other night, I heard the chopping of vegetables followed by the unique sizzle of stir fry. As the first waft of garlic traveled into the living room and floated gently under my nose, I paused live TV and sauntered in to the kitchen to kiss her on the neck. This time, it was different. There was no smiling, or arching of the back, or purring. She just stood there, eyes focused on the wok like it was her job.

"What's wrong?", I asked.

"Nothing's wrong. I'm in a hurry."

My eyes darted to the wok. Mmmm. Stir-fried chicken. Then, I looked at the counter and saw an open book with no pictures. "Oh, I see. Rachel Ray. How much time do you have?"

"I have four minutes", she said, in a voice that meant get out my way you large, roadside orange barrel. "I've gotta finish the sauce. Go sit down."

It was like the moment in "A Few Good Men", when Tom Cruise told Colonel Jessup to sit back down so he could try to work a confession out of him. There was no turning back now.

I looked at the clock. It was 7:26. This was huge. She was going for it!

I sat back down in my chair and left the TV on pause. It was 7:27 now. "How's it going in there?"

No answer from the kitchen. Is she mad at me? Should I have chopped some vegetables or something? Maybe she's busy. OK, I'll stop distracting her.

I can't fully describe the sounds coming from the kitchen over the next two minutes. It sounded like their was a team of cooking ninjas helping her. I heard chopping from one side of the kitchen, following my more sizzling, a sneeze (pepper?), more sizzling, swordplay, dishes clanging, sizzling again, and then, "It's read-yyyy."

7:29.

Congratulations, Mrs. Undaground. A 29-minute meal. I have it on good authority that the same dish takes Rachel Ray 30 minutes.